


Each Day Starts White

by kianspo



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Erik Has Feelings, First Time, Gay Mutant Road Trip, M/M, Secret Mutant Exhange 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:15:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21682816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kianspo/pseuds/kianspo
Summary: Somewhere in the middle of the road trip to recruit more mutants, Charles and Erik get caught up in a storm. That's how it begins, but it's not how it ends. It takes them about thirty years to discover that Genoshan sunrises are beautiful.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Comments: 36
Kudos: 221
Collections: Secret Mutant Exchange 2019





	Each Day Starts White

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arcapelago (arcanewinter)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanewinter/gifts).
  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [Each Day Starts White](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24336496) by [BeatriceAlighieri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeatriceAlighieri/pseuds/BeatriceAlighieri)



> Written for arcapelago, who wanted something from the optimistic era of canon. Canon optimism really isn't my superpower, but hopefully, this still works somehow. Hopefully.

\--

“Charles. Charles, wake up.”

Slumped against his window, Charles doesn’t even budge. So much for the ever-vigilant telepath watching their backs, Erik thinks, half-amused, half-annoyed, but mostly just tired. He shakes Charles by the shoulder.

“Charles!”

“Huh?” Charles jerks up straight in his seat only to groan as his stiff muscles protest. “What the hell, Erik? We’re not there yet.” He glances out the window, blinks a few times. “Actually… where _are_ we?”

“I have no idea. But we’re out of gas, so get out.”

He steps out of the car before Charles can conquer his confusion and looks around. Fields. Endless fields of… something. Wheats. Oats. Erik has never been one for agriculture. He takes a few steps away from the car, watching as reddish dust settles over his shoes. He stops, gazing thoughtfully at the dark horizon. Storm clouds. Hm.

Behind him, a car door creaks open and then smashes closed, followed by the sound of footsteps. Charles stops next to him, hands in his pockets, looking over in the same direction.

“We’re out of gas?”

“Yes.”

“Um. Would it be terribly slow of me to ask exactly how we’re out of gas? We did stop for gas right after lunch—or was it a heat-induced hallucination?”

“We did,” Erik says. “There was a hole in the tank.”

Charles blinks. “You… didn’t feel that?”

Erik bites back a sigh. He could say that no, he didn’t feel that, because he doesn’t routinely inspect any kind of machinery with his power before he operates it. He does sometimes. Often. Not always. He could still say that. But the actual reason he didn’t do it this time, was because he was distracted. Charles was chatting with another driver passing through, all smiles and easy tired-traveler charm. Erik's attention slipped for a few vital moments.

“I didn’t realize until it was too late,” he says eventually.

“Ah.” Charles doesn’t poke at it further. He rolls his shoulders a few times instead, chasing away the stiffness. “There has to be some sort of… uh, settlement around here, right? Do we take a walk?”

Erik nods. He’s not sure about the settlement. But the road has to lead somewhere. Charles's pace, while not exactly lagging, is unhurried, none of his usual slightly manic energy. It’s been a long day. Erik, for his part, feels high-strung, wants to bolt up ahead to relieve some of that strange, pent-up tension. But that would be childish. He doesn’t think Charles would run after him.

For a few blissful minutes, they walk in silence. Erik knows it can’t last. He can’t decide if he’s more annoyed or pleased by that.

“So,” Charles says eventually, “any idea where we are?”

“Not a one.”

“Are you mad at me for talking you into leaving the interstate?”

“No.”

“But we’re lost.”

Erik snorts. It’s involuntary.

“Fine,” Charles grumbles. “I suppose it’s not that big a deal.” He pauses. “You could have moved the car without gas, you know.”

“I could have, but I’m tired. Besides, what if someone saw a flying car? Would you be willing to alter the memories of every single person who happens upon us?”

Charles wrinkles his nose. “No, you’re right. But _a flying car_ , Erik. It would have been so groovy.”

Erik rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning. Charles catches it and beams at him.

“Can you sense anyone nearby?” Erik asks, more to deter him than anything.

Charles lifts his hand to his temple. As usual, Erik wonders if it’s courtesy or reflex.

“Huh,” Charles hums a little, sounding surprised. “Not a soul for—well, miles and miles, what feels like. How did we manage that?”

He doesn’t sound concerned, though, just mildly curious. Erik steals a look at him. Charles's clothes are somewhat rumpled after being stuck for six hours in the car, but his neat slacks and preppy jacket still look completely out of place here, in the middle of Midwestern countryside. Yet Charles himself seems perfectly at ease. It’s not the first time Erik wonders at his confidence. Is it his power alone that gives him that perpetual air of self-assurance? No, a dry, sardonic voice replies in his head. Even without his telepathy, Charles strikes him as one of those people who seem convinced that the world waits on their pleasure. Erik hates the type personally, though likes it as a professional. People like that are usually easy to break.

Usually.

“I remember we talked about taking a shortcut,” Charles carries on, oblivious, “but I don’t recall even a possibility of such vast expanse of no man’s land on that map.”

Erik shrugs. “I probably took a wrong turn somewhere.”

Charles glances at him, a strange half-smile curving his mouth. “You, my friend? Impossible.”

 _Shows what you know_ , Erik thinks, the biggest wrong turn he’s ever taken walking right beside him. He should be angrier about that. He doesn’t allow himself any kind of distractions, and unavoidable delays usually make him feel like a caged tiger, lashing his tail against the bars.

Charles's arm brushes his as they walk. Erik feels… strangely content with the world at this precise moment.

“Hm.” Charles glances up at the sky, frowning slightly. “I think we might want to look for shelter.”

Erik considers the storm clouds. They have moved significantly closer, and the wind is picking up. “What’s wrong, Charles? Afraid of a little rain?”

Charles rolls his eyes. “Please. I spent enough years in England. But I suspect this is the reason why there’s not a single living soul for miles around.”

As though to back him up, the sky erupts in charges of lightning. Erik waits for thunder. It doesn’t come.

“Shit,” he mutters, watching the light show. An electrical storm. Unusual and much more dangerous. Everything around them is quiet as though holding its breath. It’s menacing.

Erik closes his eyes and stretches his senses. Charles can only locate people, but Erik can feel out the environment, search for familiar shapes. There. A structure of some sort. Iron bolts wedged in wood.

“Erik?”

“Come on.” Erik grabs his elbow, just as the first gust of wind hits them. “This way.”

They walk briskly, but as the wind picks up further, break into a run, Erik leading the way. It’s getting darker by the second, almost unnaturally fast. The clouds roil with threat closer and closer, still sending out silent branched lightnings, accompanied only by the howl of the wind. Erik veers off the road, just as the wind hits them head on, strong enough to make moving against it a struggle. Charles is yelling something behind him, but Erik can’t quite make out the words. As the wind flattens the grass and plants around them, they come up over the crest of the hill, and Erik can finally see it. It’s a barn of some sort, looking as old as the ground it stands on.

A lightning bolt strikes about forty yards away, spilling a sharp scent of ozone in the air and making every hair on Erik's body stand on end. He grabs Charles by the arm and hurtles down the hill, eyes zooming in on the barn like it’s the only thing in existence. As they reach it, Erik propels Charles inside, the rusty door being permanently stuck on its hinges. The lightnings are hitting so closely and so fast that everything is illuminated, more so perhaps than it ever is in broad sunlight. There’s nothing inside the barn but some hay and what looks like parts of machinery, broken and forgotten.

Charles is looking around, hands on his knees as he tries to catch his breath. In the eerie light with his hair tousled and his face flushed, he looks like a demon, the impression driven forward by his eyes that look almost violet, unnatural and inhuman. Erik's knees feel weak.

“We’re not safe here.” Charles looks at him, straightening, speaking louder than usual over the sound of wind outside, howling for blood. “We’re a singular structure, downhill, granted, but—”

Erik walks past him, hit with an idea. He lifts his hand and the heap of metal that looks like the remains of a tractor or two lifts obediently in the air for his inspection. With a casual sweep of his hand he moves all of it outside, walking out behind. Quickly, he considers the distance. Too close, and they’d risk getting some of the charge from the ground. Too far, and they’d still be a target. Right above would be ideal, but the barn looks old enough to collapse under so much as an ounce of added weight. Not to mention, will most likely catch fire.

_Oh, Erik, that’s brilliant. Thirty yards should do it._

Erik can’t help a bolt of intense satisfaction at Charles's approval. He presses it down and concentrates, extending his hands, like a conductor before an orchestra. He doesn’t need his hands to direct the metal, but he can sense Charles's delight at the display of his powers, his appreciation of the visual Erik is presenting as well as what he accomplishes. He’s aware he’s showing off, but the thought isn’t enough to stop him.

He trims the metal efficiently to create a lightning rod, quickly considering the parameters. Higher than the barn, certainly, that isn’t hard, yet sturdy to withstand multiple hits, and digging in deep into the ground away from the structure to reduce the residual voltage reach. The ground beneath his feet feels electrified enough as it is. The metal creaks and moans as Erik works it, fast, faster still, so that a stray charge doesn’t strike it before it’s ready. With a sweep of powers, he lifts the entire branchy, ugly thing up into the air and centers it. As the first lightning hits it, Erik reels back in shock, still too connected to the metal. It’s disorienting.

“Easy.” Charles's arms are suddenly around him, his voice soft in Erik's ear. “Let go, Erik, you did it. Just let go.”

Erik takes a deeper breath and pulls himself back, withdrawing from the metal. Time disappears as he sits on the ground as lightning after lightning hits the rod, like a pack of vultures tearing at their prey. It hurts to watch, and he can’t look away. Charles is kneeling behind him, hands on Erik's shoulders, a grounding presence. It feels good as Erik becomes aware of it. Strange. But good. He wants to close his eyes and just sink into it.

“Come on.” Charles tugs at him. “Let’s get inside.”

Erik accepts the proffered hand up. With a flick of his hand, he moves the door so that it provides at least partial shielding from the lightning storm happening outside. There’s still not a single drop of rain, and it feels unnatural, misplaced. Charles sits down on a pile of hay, leaning back against a taller stack. He still looks too pale and ethereal. Unnerving. Looking away is the hardest thing Erik can remember doing in a while, but he does, eventually, and comes to sit next to him.

 _You’re incredible, you know,_ Charles murmurs, mind-to-mind, his eyes half-closed, reflecting liquid ice-cold fire.

Erik turns his head, watches his face. “Why did you do it?” he asks, even though he had no idea he would, a second ago. “That first time?”

Charles blinks, something supernatural about him still as he looks at Erik, making his nerves as charged as the air outside.

_What do you mean?_

“Shaw’s yacht. You pulled me from the water. Why?”

He never asked this. Not in those first confusing hours on the CIA boat, not later in the compound, and not in all the weeks they’ve spent on the road, looking for others like them. Charles made choices constantly. He detected a great many of them through Cerebro, but he only went after some, and out of those they met, he only revealed them to a few. Angel was their only successful recruit so far. For all that it was a fun night, Erik could feel Charles's reluctance to make the offer, even as he said the words. Why some and not others? And why Erik, whom Charles didn’t give a choice?

_That’s not true, you know. I would have let you go that first night at the CIA. It would have killed me. But I would have._

“Stop reading my mind,” Erik growls reflexively. “And if you are, you know that’s not what I meant.”

Charles is gazing at him with an almost otherworldly serenity. Erik feels his hackles rise. He doesn’t mind Charles using his powers on him, not really. But he hates that he doesn’t get a glimpse of what’s happening on the other side.

Charles sighs slightly. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I could read poetry to you, but I doubt that would cover it. Or that you’d want it, anyway.”

Erik glowers at him. “Try me.”

Charles smiles, and it’s unmistakably sad this time. His lips look blood-red against the lightning-white of his skin. What Erik feels at the sight he’d never put into words. What he wants…

_Your mind was like a beacon. Unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It’s not just brighter, like a mind of a fellow mutant. It’s… iridescent. I know you don’t see it and won’t believe me, but Erik—you shine brighter than any of us. Everything about you is so intense, it’s like you aren’t even real. And yet, to me, you are the most real thing I’ve ever known. When I felt you there in the water, it was as though I’ve been asleep my whole life, until the moment my mind touched yours._

Erik swallows, his mouth suddenly dry. “You should not be telling me this.”

Charles lifts an eyebrow. “Because you’d use it as a weapon against me?” He shakes his head. “I’m not afraid of you, Erik. Of what you can do, certainly. But never of you.”

Erik surges forward without warning, pushing him back until he’s braced above Charles on all fours, glaring down at him. “You’re the most arrogant man I’ve ever met,” he says, his forearm pressing against Charles's throat.

Charles's eyes that went wide at Erik's sudden motion are trained on him now, unblinking, still too unearthly to be believed. His lips part around an exhale. He doesn’t move. Outside, a lightning bolt strikes with a loud snapping sound, making everything too bright for a split second. Under his arm, Erik can feel Charles's throat straining, tense. Charles doesn’t move, doesn’t look away.

“Dammit,” Erik mutters, taking his arm away, groaning in frustration. “Why, Charles? I could kill you right now, and not even you would be able to stop me, and yet… What _is_ this? What is it that you do that makes me feel so… so…”

Helpless. Frightened. Anxious. A myriad of other things Erik has never felt and can’t name.

Charles reaches to gently run his fingers over Erik's cheek. Erik wants to snap at him and lean into it at the same time.

_Nothing. I swear to you._

Erik doesn’t want to believe him. It would be so much easier if Charles was influencing him somehow. Pulling at Erik's strings to make him stay, to make him follow Charles on his crazy quest around the country, to make him track Charles's every move as he gets ready for bed in a shared hotel room. It would be easier, and Erik never had a problem applying Occam’s razor, but it’s that last part that renders this possibility void. Erik has seen enough of Charles's morals in action to know exactly how flexible they are, but Charles would never do that.

Charles smiles softly. _Thank you, I suppose._

Erik wants to hurt him, but he can’t, and not through any external influence. That is the most frustrating thing of all. He curls his hand around Charles's throat, feels him swallow, feels his pulse pick up, but all Charles does is take a deeper breath and look at him. Erik's hand slides lower, popping the buttons of Charles's shirt open one by one, exposing more of that smooth pale skin, luminescent in the flashes of light. Charles's breath becomes more rapid, but he doesn’t protest, doesn’t try to make Erik stop. Erik can’t help but touch, slide his hand over his chest, explore the dip under the ribs, the surprisingly toned stomach. Charles runs, he remembers as his fingers dip lower, making Charles shift under him, not quite seeking escape. There’s no way for Erik to resist this kind of gravity, not when Charles doesn’t say a word to make him stop.

With a groan of surrender, he buries his face in Charles's throat, sealing his lips over the dip between his collarbones, drawing in his scent. Charles moans softly and arches up beneath him, head falling back, fingers tangling in Erik's hair. There’s no pretending anymore that this is anything but what it is, no matter how much Erik doesn’t want to face it.

He doesn’t know when it started. Maybe at that strange, electric moment when Charles looked at him like he could see right through him and said, _‘I’m with Erik,’_ the words shaking Erik to his very core. Or perhaps it was earlier, something more base than that, that moment when they were pulled out of the water and left alone to change. Charles stripped in front of him like it was nothing, like he didn’t know what he looked like, like he suddenly couldn’t read Erik's mind.

Or maybe it was earlier still, when that incredible mind enveloped his, piercing through his despair, whispering, soothing, filled with such longing and promise, _‘You’re not alone. Erik. You’re not alone.’_

Erik was doomed at that precise moment, he just didn’t know it. Charles broke something that night, something that Shaw had started and Erik had spent years honing. Whatever allowed him to be ruthless without remorse, whatever made people seem insignificant, not real, nothing more than actors playing their parts, poorly at that. Charles broke that unwittingly, slammed right into him, and somehow managed to wedge himself deep into Erik's heart, acting as his conscience, filling him with doubt. Erik can’t—won’t forgive him for that.

He presses his body hard against Charles's and finally, _finally_ kisses him, fierce and heated and a little bit punishing, but Charles only arches up, eager, giving back as good as he’s getting. Erik can’t stop, doesn’t stop, not really thinking, as he works through buttons and zippers until he can bruise skin, press it into the scratchy hay, ignoring everything, drunk on the taste, the scent, the sounds Charles is making, the never-ending swell of _want_ in his mind that is beating like a shared pulse between them.

There’s nothing to use but spit, and it’s a little too dry, on the edge of uncomfortable when Erik wraps his hand around them both, but he’s glad of it. It serves to remind him that this is a mistake, a dangerous distraction not meant to be enjoyable, not meant to be enduring. But as Charles reaches up to kiss him, his mouth clever and far too generous and addictive, Erik knows that nothing, not even actual physical pain would deter him from this, because he’d lost this battle, lost it a long time ago.

 _Why?_ he thinks again, a desperate cry, as pleasure spills tight and scorching, making his entire body seize for a moment until it’s done with him. Charles is hooked onto him too closely to last past that, and Erik comes to his senses just in time to watch him fall apart, more beautiful broken down like this than Erik ever could imagine. He wants nothing more than to hold him and protect him forever from anyone and everyone, and break him again, just like this, over and over, as if nothing else exists, because in moments like this nothing does.

He doesn’t mean to doze off, but he wakes up to the sound of Charles laughing quietly.

“What?” Erik half lifts his head from Charles's chest he’s been using as a pillow. Then he blinks. It’s dark around. And there’s a peculiar sound in the air. As though—

“It’s raining,” Charles says. “The storm has passed.”

Erik shifts then, pulling himself higher up on their improvised bed, grimacing as straw catches on sensitive skin. Charles shivers as they lose contact. His eyes are quiet as he watches Erik. Dark. _Normal_. He’s handsome, there’s no denying it, but hardly so overwhelmingly attractive as to become the twin star of Erik's obsession to rival Shaw.

Charles winces, catching the thought. “Well, that’s flattering. Competing for the same space in your mind that he occupies already—you’re sweeping me off my feet, Erik.”

“You know who I am, Charles,” Erik says, carding his fingers through Charles's hair. “What happened can’t change that.”

Charles says nothing, but he catches Erik's wrist, turns his face into his palm. Erik's breath catches.

“If I… if we…” He has to clear his throat. Charles is still, listening, eyes half-closed, as though Erik's pulse is telling him something entirely different. “Charles, I’ll hurt you, if you let me. There’s no other way this can go.”

Charles nods slowly, presses a long kiss to Erik's palm. He looks up, his smile shaky, but there. “I’m hoping maybe—maybe it won’t come to that. If… if you find the answer to your question. If you decide that it’s more important than… other things.”

Erik can’t help but smile back. “You’re impossibly naïve. I don’t know how you’re still alive.”

Charles wrinkles his forehead as though deep in thought. “Probably Raven.”

They both laugh. Erik leans over and kisses him, long, lingering, enough for the humor to melt away, giving way to something deeper.

He knows the answer, but he can’t know it, and so he doesn’t. A paradox he can’t touch. Not if he wants to stay true to himself. Not if he wants to fulfill his mission. Maybe when Shaw is dead…

Erik has never before considered a life _after_ Shaw is dead. Somehow, he always saw himself dying and taking Shaw down with him. But what if there _was_ a life after? Something to live for after? A better world. Not possible when he thought he was alone, but temptingly within reach now. A better world, and…

Charles breaks the kiss and pulls Erik back down on top of him, using him for a blanket as he shivers under a tendril of cool night air. Erik finds his body melding itself to Charles's without any conscious input from him. He sighs and kisses Charles's hair.

“Let’s get some sleep,” Charles murmurs, snuggling closer. “We have a few hours till dawn. This isn’t weird for you, is it? I mean, we’re both men. I don’t know if you…”

“A little too late for that kind of concern, isn’t it?” Erik bites softly on his earlobe. “No, Charles, it’s not weird. I—” he almost blurts it out, but stops in time.

Charles sighs, relaxing. “Good.” Softer still, “Me too.”

Erik guards his sleep until morning, committing every second to memory.

\--

Morning comes unnaturally bright and almost too hot for May. Charles has discarded his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, as they head back for the road. His hair is a hopeless mess at this point, and the sun has made more of his freckles come out. He looks cheerful, bouncy, humming under his breath, grinning at nothing in particular, almost as unbearably bright as the morning itself. It hurts to look at him. Erik can’t stop.

A farmer who picks them up seems to be the uncurious sort, or maybe it’s Charles again steering his attention elsewhere. He offers them a lift to the closest town, and they climb into the back of the truck, sitting with their backs to the cabin. The road is bumpy, the wind a little too fresh. There’s a foot of space between them, and Erik hates it suddenly, irrationally angry. 

Charles leans over the side of the truck, babbling about something that Erik pays no attention to. He looks young, impossibly so. It strikes Erik suddenly that _this_ might be the real Charles. Not the savvy, confident man who walks into the CIA like he owns it, but this—this _boy_ , bright-eyed, exuberant, with a mouth on him meant for smiling. It makes Erik feel… helpless. And angry about it. Charles looks like someone who needs protection, but Erik can’t protect him. No one can.

Charles turns toward him, eyes shrewd as if he knows—which, of course, he does. He peers at Erik for a moment longer, and Erik just sits there, feeling laid bare, and he hates Charles a little bit for it. But there’s no pretending after last night. He can’t take back what he never said, especially since he never did say it.

Charles glances at the cabin and his hand lifts to his temple for a moment. Then he’s sliding closer, straddling Erik's hips, making Erik look up to maintain eye contact. Slowly, deliberately, Charles cradles Erik's face between his hands and leans in to kiss him. It’s not meant to be arousing, instead calling to something even deeper than the physical desire, something at the very core. Erik wraps his arms around him, pulls him closer, kissing back like he’s drowning again, holding on.

 _You’re a ridiculous man,_ Charles whispers without moving his lips, pressing his forehead against Erik's. _But thank you. No one has ever…_

No, Erik can believe that. Who would want to protect Charles? Was there ever another fool out there somewhere who looked at possibly the most powerful man who’s ever walked the Earth and thought: ‘I will lay down my life to keep him safe’? Erik _is_ ridiculous, but that’s only half the trouble. He can’t actually do what he wants. He can’t make the promise he won’t be able to keep. He can’t stay at Charles's side, protecting his innocent naivete. For one thing, there’s a huge part of him that wants to destroy it instead. Whether Shaw made him into a monster or he’d always been one, the result is the same. And that’s another reason he can’t promise Charles anything, even if he could find a way to keep the demon at bay. He already has a mission.

Charles sighs as he lets him go, but they sit side by side now, their fingers tangled. The truck slowly enters a more populated area, but still Charles doesn’t let him go.

It’s a weird afternoon. While Erik goes about hiring a tow and fixing the rental they’d abandoned the day before, Charles walks around the small town, delighting in its sights like a tourist on his first trip to Paris. Erik finds him later eating possibly the biggest apple pie he had ever seen in the town’s only diner. Charles grins and shares it with him. Erik summons an extra fork. They keep eating off the same plate and talking about favorite books of all things, and anyone who could possibly have been bothered by the sight mysteriously looks right past them.

“We have to go,” Erik says at long last, after they have finished their coffee. Charles has been nursing the drags for at least fifteen minutes now, obviously reluctant to move.

“I know,” he sighs, then smiles as though in apology.

Erik pointedly takes the map with the most direct route to the interstate marked on it in red and folds it into his pocket before reaching for the keys. Charles lifts his hands up, grinning. It’s only as they cross the town limit, when Erik notices the sign.

_You are now leaving Perfect Harmony_

Erik glances over to see if Charles has noticed, but Charles is looking straight ahead, a mild frown wedged between his eyebrows. Erik looks away. After a few moments, he turns on the radio.

\--

That night they stay at a dingy motel in the single free room with a leaky roof and a lonely lightbulb that won’t stop flickering. Charles grimaces as he takes it in, and then goes back to reception to call Raven. He comes back looking significantly more cheered up just as Erik steps out of the shower. Charles grins.

Erik has him on all fours that night, face pressed into the pillow, where he doesn’t have to look into his eyes. It’s idiotic, of course, trying to hide from a telepath. Part of him wonders, even as he thrusts with abandon into the giving body under him, ears filled with Charles's ragged breaths, if it would get irritating in the long run, the telepathy as their constant companion, or if he’d get so used to it, he’d hardly even notice. He knows he’ll never find out, and that thought makes him growl, makes him bury his face in Charles's neck and press in desperately, trying to merge them together closer than humanly possible, to break him or dissolve in him, Erik doesn’t know.

Charles is something that shouldn’t exist. And for that very reason he’s real. Erik couldn’t have made him up, not in a million alternate scenarios. Erik shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near him.

“I hate when you think like that,” Charles tells him later, sated and languid, but never quite complacent in his arms. “I get it. But Erik… You’re not even entertaining the possibility that it might not be as dire as that. That things might work out. I don’t think your mutation extends to predicting the future.”

Erik wishes for a cigarette. As close as they are at the moment, there’s a chasm between him and Charles he doesn’t know how to cross. It’s not about the methods of dealing with humans. It’s about Charles sensing the same threat in the air as Erik does, but willfully ignoring it, or worse still—hoping that what he calls common sense will prevail. That humans as a species won’t ever go that far. It helps, Erik muses, if one hadn’t looked at the world from inside a concentration camp.

Charles rolls onto his side, leaning on his elbow, his hand on Erik's chest. “What about you and me then?” he asks. “Why this?” He gestures between them. “If that’s how you really think.”

Erik looks at him, reaches to trace the contours of his face with his fingers. “Of all things, I’d think that would be obvious.”

Charles shakes his head, but there’s a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You’re impossible.” He catches Erik's hand, kisses his wrist. “You’ve got to let me try, Erik. I’m very persuasive, you know. You just have to let me try. To believe. Even a little bit.”

 _You stayed,_ Charles's mind adds, while his mouth is too busy kissing down Erik's chest. _You stayed once. Surely, it means something._

Those lips are excruciating, and those fingers are clever, but Erik feels revolted all of a sudden. He stayed, yes. He’s using Charles. In more ways than one now, it would seem. He’s done it before, countless times, operational necessity, but he never felt this way before. He never cared.

He can feel Charles's smirk against his skin. _I’m flattered._

Erik twists and captures him, rolling him onto his back, pressing him down. “You should be insulted.”

Charles grins up at him, flushed beautifully, his eyes the dangerous shade of drunk blue, the hints of the same supernatural creature from the night before lurking in the shadows.

_Why don’t you let me decide how I feel, Erik? Isn’t that only fair?_

They break the bed when Erik rides him. Charles laughs until he’s crying, and then he laughs some more. They check out in the morning. The owner doesn’t say anything.

\--

There are things Erik remembers from that summer that he never thought he’d have. Small, uncomplicated, innocuous things. Teasing Hank and Raven. Pushing Sean off the satellite dish. Helping Alex dismantle the remains of the old gazebo he’d just destroyed with his plasma blast before Charles finds out. Having a detailed discussion with Moira on the merits of the different kinds of handguns. Having dinner every night at a big table, family-style, with jokes and pranks flying around carelessly, and laughter hanging in the air.

And, of course, there’s Charles, who qualifies as a miracle or an impossibility in and of himself. Not even the sex part so much. That part, Erik is familiar with. Even the sex with another man part is familiar, not that he had indulged that often. He doesn’t have the luxury of making unwanted glances slide away the way Charles does. No, those parts, while incredible, aren’t what’s doing his head in.

It’s the sheer domesticity of it all. The companionship. Every time he makes love to Charles becomes a cherished memory, but so does every conversation they share at the end of the day, sipping their drinks in front of the fire in Charles's study, playing chess or just talking about anything and everything. Like the time Charles shares his theory on which famous historical figures he suspects of having been mutants.

“Da Vinci for sure,” he says, gesturing with his whiskey glass, as he sits on the floor, his back pressed against the couch a foot away from Erik. “Something like our Hank, I imagine. Increasing intellectual capacity.” Charles looks thoughtful for a moment. “Probably minus the feet.”

Erik smirks. “Or the social anxiety.”

Charles kicks him, but the corners of his mouth are quirking upward. “Be nice. But seriously, I have half a mind to make a study of it. They said Machiavelli was ‘uncannily perceptive’, at times giving the impression that he could read minds. But I wager the bugger was just really smart and had good survival instincts. Now, Cleopatra, on the other hand…”

“You think the queen of Egypt was a telepath?”

“Telepath? No. If she was a mutant, I think her powers lay closer to regeneration. She routinely took poisons and was rumored to never age.”

Erik smiles as he reaches to card his fingers through Charles's hair. “You’re such an academic.” He means to tease, but suspects he sounds unbearably fond instead.

Charles grins at him, leaning into the caress. “Guilty as charged. If we lived in a better world, I can see myself spending my life in such pursuits. I’d spend my days in the archives and never see the sun.”

Erik sinks back into the couch, his smile fading slowly. A better world. Unimaginable, to be honest. Here, on the grounds of Charles's mansion, secluded from the world, it almost seems within reach. But this space is just a soap bubble. Ephemeral and defenseless.

“Do you really believe we can build a better world?” Erik asks before he knows it. Nothing Charles can say can convert him, but he’s curious as to the extent of Charles's belief. “One where no one would look twice were Raven to take a stroll down the street in her natural form?”

Charles is silent for a long time before he replies, speaking quietly. “I don’t and I do. I don’t believe we will see such a world within our lifetime, no. But if we start now, if we work tirelessly, then yes, I do believe that the next generation might.”

Erik lifts an eyebrow. “And that seems fair to you?”

“Fair?” Charles frowns. “I don’t think it’s about fair. It’s just that—this is happening now. So it falls on us. We have to—we _must_ show them a better way.”

“A better way,” Erik repeats, tasting the words. “Belief. You have that much faith in the human race?”

Charles turns to look at him, smiles slightly. “I do. We’re part of the human race, Erik. And yes, I do have faith in _us_.”

They finish the bottle, and then Erik locks the door with a casual sweep of his power, drags Charles closer to the fire, and spreads him out on the thick rug, until they’re pressed together, skin on skin, and the sounds Charles makes don’t remotely resemble words. Fine, so maybe this part is as much of a revelation, as all the other parts, every time. He’s never tired of touching Charles; he can never have enough.

The fire is low enough now that it’s casting the room in ruby glow, catching every exhale Charles makes, cradling every soft wet noise of bodies meeting each other. Faith. If Erik had the capacity, this would be the only object for it. Not humanity, ridden with so many flaws that it’s way beyond redemption. But Charles certainly, Charles alone, and the things they could do together.

For the first time in a long time, Erik's head is spinning with possibilities, and he lets himself fall, hurt but hopeful again, when Charles's mind whispers through him, pushing both of them over the edge.

\--

Faith. Something that, unlike telepathy, can’t be stopped by a helmet. Erik had never been burdened by any, but Charles, that sneaky bastard, had left a part of himself behind that beautiful sunny day on the beach where he broke Erik's heart. Erik hadn’t noticed then, hadn’t noticed for the longest time.

But it was faith that made him step down as Magneto that first time, taking off the helmet. Faith, unacknowledged and unrecognized, that made him smile at Magda and let him witness the miracle of his daughter’s birth. Faith, betraying him again, leading him straight to the unimaginable pain of losing them.

He was done with faith, but it was like a virus, undetectable, working its way through him even as he stood on the brink of complete destruction. He only had to make the mistake of remembering Charles's face to come back.

The first time he set foot on the soil of Genosha, faith, his much detested companion was walking with him. He could almost feel the contented hum at the back of his mind, that part of him that was so alien at first, and now seemed like his very own. It was almost the same as having Charles walk beside him, the island as much a manifestation of his unkillable belief as Erik's struggle.

Erik smiled then, bitter as it was, because in a way they were at long last together here. Even with an ocean still between them.

\--

When Erik offers Charles that part of himself back in a street café in Paris, Charles doesn’t take it. It’s Erik's now, it won’t fit him any longer. But he agrees to come with it, and honestly, it’s too good to be true, and it’s real. 

It takes Erik a long time to reconcile the two.

\--

Erik's toes sink into the sand as he walks along the stretch of a beach slowly toward the house. That he’d ended up a master of this tropical paradise is perhaps the most ironic thing that has ever happened to him. The tangible dimension of the power of faith. If he wasn’t walking on it, living in it, breathing its air, he’d never have believed it.

But perhaps the most incredible thing of all is happening just before him. The door of the house—a cottage, really, only distinguished from others by wider doorways and the abundance of metal—opens. Erik can sense the familiar shape of the wheelchair before Charles himself emerges, lifting his face up toward the sky to take his measure of the upcoming day. He’s completely naked save for a towel draped over his hips, and this is why, Erik thinks, he’s so glad they’re so far away from the others. This is the best part of his day.

Charles directs the wheels of his chair straight onto the pier and rolls forward confidently, a slight smile on his lips. At the end of the track there’s a simple open lift. He secures the wheels and presses the lever, throwing the towel back onto the pier as the chair begins to go down. As the water reaches the level of his hips, Charles stops the lift, pushes with his hands and tips himself into the water with a splash, disappearing from view. He does this nearly every morning, and yet Erik's heart still stops for a second every time, until he reemerges, blinking water out of his eyes and laughing in delight.

The water here is salty enough to give him buoyancy for the immobile part of his body, and Charles is an excellent swimmer. The titanium bracelet Erik made him promise to never take off for Erik's sanity is glittering brightly in the sun, as Charles swims with powerful strokes of his arms, the muscles in his back shifting in a mesmerizing display. He dives and floats and swims some more until finally he feels he’s had enough.

This is by far Erik's favorite part. Charles swims toward the chair, maneuvers in the water, and then lifts himself up into the seat with a powerful push of his arms. Water cascades down his body, bouncing off the impressive muscles of his arms, chest, and stomach, glittering in the sunlight. This, right here, is the sexiest thing Erik has ever seen, and his mouth goes dry as he watches.

As the chair begins to move up, Charles twists an arm behind him to pick up the towel, but he does nothing more than a cursory sweep over his face, before dropping it into his lap. As the lift delivers him back onto the pier, he executes a neat turn, and rolls back toward the house, where Erik is waiting. After almost a year, his skin is not so pale now, but a wonderful healthy gold, smooth, and freckled, and completely perfect. His eyes are a bright, vivid blue even from the distance, much as they used to be once upon a time, before life and grief had dulled them.

He’s smiling at Erik, and Erik can’t help but wonder how he is so lucky, that after everything he’s been through, after everything he’s done, he can still have this, his very own safe haven, and this magnificent, gorgeous man coming home with him, waking up in his bed, in _their_ bed, every morning.

“Well,” Charles says, grinning up at him, as he stops beside him, “now _that_ is entirely too flattering.”

His skin is ocean-cool where his mouth is hot and welcoming when Erik kisses him, greedy, like it’s the first time, already halfway there just from watching. Charles reaches for him, pulling him closer, fingers sifting through Erik's hair, as he deepens the kiss on every level, making everything he feels sink into Erik's skin.

“I’m the lucky one here,” Charles murmurs, not letting him go far. “Erik…”

“Yes,” Erik replies, instantly. It’s always ‘yes’ these days. He can hardly remember the days when it wasn’t so. He doesn’t want to. “Yes, Charles. I—”

Charles kisses the words right off his tongue, tasting the feeling.

\--

There’s a lightning rod in the garden, in addition to the one in the house, built specifically to lure any stray lightning storms that may come their way. None have come around so far. Erik has faith.

\--

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Each Day Starts White](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24969517) by [IreneADonovan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IreneADonovan/pseuds/IreneADonovan)
  * [Each Night He'll Write](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25048639) by [princess_fluffle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/princess_fluffle/pseuds/princess_fluffle)




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